The 8th Continent (12 page)

Doctor Grant scowled. “So did I! But then Winterpole and Mastercorp and a hundred other pests started sticking their noses into my business. I couldn't have them spotting my hideout from a reconnaissance hovership, could I? For now, this is the best I can do. So I continue my experiments in private. Away from Winterpole. Away from Mastercorp. I like it. It's peaceful. Just me and Niels Bohr.”

“Niels Bohr?” Rick asked. “The Danish physicist? But he's been dead for decades.”

“No! How can that be? Niels Bohr! Where are you?” Doctor Grant started to cry. “I just fed him an hour ago. The most delicious char. Poor Niels Bohr.”

“
Mrrrowl!
” said the tiger cat, pouncing into Doctor Grant's lap.

The doctor clutched the cat gratefully. “Oh, Niels Bohr! There you are. Thank goodness you're alive. I thought I'd lost you forever, you silly kitty.”

Evie couldn't stop laughing. Her face turned purple. “Hahaha heehoohoo. Ha ha. Rick, you're such a doof. He named the cat Niels Bohr. Ha ha ha. I can't breathe.”

Rick scowled. “Laugh it up, Evie. Go on. Get it out.”

“You told him his cat was dead. He was so upset. Ha ha ha ha ha.”

Rick looked at Doctor Grant, who was giving Niels Bohr Eskimo kisses. “I'm sorry I told you your cat was dead, Doctor Grant. I was confused.”

“It's all right,” Doctor Grant said while the cat licked his face. “As long as my tiger is all right.”

“Why did you name the cat Niels Bohr, anyway?”

“Kitty litter. That's all I'll say. So, children, what has brought you all the way out here? And how can this old wayward scientist be of service to you?”

Evie and Rick told him everything—about their trip to see the garbage patch, about what Winterpole had done to their father and how they'd tried to free him, about their escape from Winterpole Headquarters, and all the way up to their death-defying trip across the ocean to find the seastead.

When they finished their tale, Doctor Grant sat back and scratched his chin as their father often did. After a ponderous silence, he said, “I think I see, no pun intended. Winterpole is persecuting your father. He needs a safe haven. You want to terraform the Great Pacific Garbage Patch into an eighth continent. There, Winterpole will have no jurisdiction. You will be free. I have just one question. What does any of this have to do with me?”

Rick pulled his portable hard drive out of his pocket. “You can't see it, but I'm holding a special item in my hand. It's my father's half of the Eden Compound. We need your half to complete the formula.”

“Oh!” Doctor Grant said. “Well, why didn't you say so? I could have saved us all a lot of time and trouble. The answer is no. I will not give you my half of the formula.”

EVIE THOUGHT THAT SHE MIGHT NEED A Q-TIP THE SIZE OF A CANOE OAR TO CLEAN OUT HER EARS.
Had she heard the old scientist correctly? Had he really just said that he wouldn't help them?

“Doctor Grant, using the Eden Compound is really important to my family. Dad needs a safe place to do his experiments. We need to get away from our rotten classmates.”

“Those are selfish reasons. Your father doesn't need a new lab. He needs to stop stealing birds from wilderness preserves.”

His words burned deep. That label was unfair. Her father had been trying to save that bird, not steal it. Now he would be labeled as a criminal forever, and it was all Winterpole's fault.

Pushing the thought from her mind, Evie leaned forward. “You could live with us on the eighth continent. It will be warm and peaceful. There will be lots of space where Niels Bohr can play. You will have your own lab, where you can work on building a real seastead, or any experiment you wish.”

“That sounds lovely,” Doctor Grant said.

Hope filled Evie's chest like fluffy clouds. “Doesn't it?”

“Yes. I'm eager to see how you make your continent without the Eden Compound.”

“But that's impossible!”

“Not my problem!” Doctor Grant hissed. “Did you ever think to ask why I am so opposed to this? The Eden Compound doesn't just transform garbage. It converts all forms of inorganic matter. You want to know why Mastercorp funded our project? You think it was because of their concern for the environment? They wanted to use it as a weapon. Imagine if the Eden Compound was sprayed over a city. Every building destroyed. Millions killed. Mass hysteria. In the wrong hands, the Eden Compound could send humankind back to the Stone Age!”

Annoyance crept into Evie's voice. “We've heard all this before, Doctor Grant.”

“Then you should know my answer!”

Evie saw her future slipping away. She needed Doctor Grant. Without him there would be no Eden Compound and no eighth continent. She understood what he was trying to say. The risks involved in using the Eden Compound were high. For years Doctor Grant had protected the secrets of the formula from Mastercorp and Winterpole, but there were so many reasons to make a new continent free from outside intrusion. She didn't want it just for her family, but for everyone in the world.

When Evie next spoke, she was surprised by the quaver in her voice. “Doctor Grant, don't you see? The power of the Eden Compound is the reason we have to be the ones to use it. You and my father invented it so that you could get rid of all the trash that is choking this planet. Your intentions were noble. We want to continue your mission now. Have you seen the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Doctor Grant? It's bigger than any living organism, a swirling mass of plastic bags and bottles and filth. The fish die. The birds starve. The patch is killing huge communities of plankton—you know, the little sea creatures that make the ecosystem work. We want to destroy that mess, Doctor, and replace it with a continent of nature and beauty, something that the entire world can enjoy. We don't want the Eden Compound to fall into the wrong hands any more than you do. If you help us make the eighth continent, when we're done we can erase the formula together, so that it can never be used as a weapon, like you fear it will be. Please, Doctor Grant. Help us. Help us save the world.”

The old doctor listened to her speech in silence, nodding occasionally and stroking Niels Bohr under his chin. At last Evie finished, breathlessly, and sat down on the raft. She shivered in the freezing air.

Doctor Grant slapped his thighs, startling Niels Bohr. “Well, when you put it that way, my dear. All right. I'm in.” He snapped at Rick. “Pay attention to your sister, my boy. She is very intelligent. You could learn a thing or six from her.”

The look on Rick's face was worth all the trouble they had been through to get here.

“Sweet!” Evie cheered in relief. “So, what do we do next? Where is your half of the formula?”

“The formula?” Doctor Grant repeated. “Oh, right. I forgot. I don't have it!”

“What?!” Evie buried her face in her hands. After all this, they still didn't have the Eden Compound.

“However,” the doctor said, “I know where it is.”

“That's great,” Rick said. “Which way do we need to go?”

Doctor Grant showed his crooked teeth in a big grin. He pointed straight down at the ocean.

IN THE DEEP DARKNESS OF THE SEA, RICK TRIED NOT TO PANIC. HE SWAM CLOSE BEHIND EVIE AND
Doctor Grant, watching their flippers alternate up and down. He hoped it wouldn't be much farther. His legs were starting to cramp.

Although the
Roost
's storage hold contained scuba gear in twelve sizes, he'd never tried any of the equipment on. He knew that
scuba
was an acronym for “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus,” but that's about all that he knew about the device. Being underwater, with fish swimming past his head and the pressure of the ocean pushing against his ribs, it took time for him to remember to breathe. His innate reaction was to hold his breath, and so until he ran out of air he would hold it, even though his respirator was snug in his mouth. With each wheezy gasp, he made a mental note to try to breathe normally, but the strange surroundings and the fear of drowning kept making him forget.

In most of the video games Rick played, the depths of the ocean were home to killer sharks, giant squids, electric eels, flesh-eating piranhas, poisonous jellyfish, and starfish. (Obviously starfish did not sound as dangerous as the other creatures on his list, but he refused to trust anything that had no head.) Rick feared all of these sea monsters. He had seen no evidence that a wetsuit and scuba tank would keep him safe, but he had plenty of evidence that staying on dry land would.

When Rick had expressed his reservations about swimming underwater, Doctor Grant's response was unsympathetic, at best. “If a seventy-year-old blind scientist with a bum hip and bad teeth can swim two miles underwater, then so can you!”

Yeah
, Rick thought, watching the old man paddle in front of him,
but Doctor Grant has an aquatic echo locator device to help him find his way in the dark ocean.
All Rick had were the sniffles.

Still, he tried his best, staying close so that he wouldn't get lost. They could only see a few meters ahead in the dark water. If he swam too far to one side, or fell too far behind, Evie and Doctor Grant would disappear, and Rick would be lost alone in the gut of the ocean.

Scuba diving was the
worst
. Rick was used to swimming by repeatedly mashing the
X
-button, not by kicking his legs.

Evie had taken to the water like a duck to, well, water. Her flippers moved in a blur, and frequently she had to slow down so that Rick and Doctor Grant could catch up. Rick wanted to scold her for racing ahead, but with the respirator in his mouth, he couldn't complain.

Part of Rick's trouble catching up came from his constantly having to stop to drain his face mask. His glasses left little gaps in the plastic seal around his face, which meant the little pouch for his nose was constantly filling up with water.

Just when Rick thought he was going to be swimming forever, he saw it, a black shadow emerging from the darkness. At first he thought it was a whale, although the massive thing suspended in the water was bigger than any whale Rick knew about. Its fins were outstretched, and a heavy propeller was embedded in each. As they got closer, Rick realized that he wasn't looking at a whale but at a submarine, the largest he had ever seen, bigger than the entire campus of ISES.

He recalled Doctor Grant's words while they were suiting up. “After your father and I parted ways, Mastercorp was not pleased with the lack of results our project—and their money—had produced. I owed them, they said. I was taken to a giant submarine research facility under the Arctic Ocean, where I was forced to conduct tests, create weapons, and attempt to generate the Eden Compound. They held me in solitary confinement. They denied me food. But still I would not re-create the formula. They found my half. It was confiscated when they raided my lab. They tried to replicate the compound themselves, but without the half your father had, they failed. Eventually I sabotaged the facility and escaped. During my travels, hiding around the world, I returned to the lab several times. It's been abandoned for years, but it still had working equipment that I could salvage. Now we can use it to fabricate the Eden Compound.”

They swam up to the hull of the submarine and paddled alongside it. Painted on the side of the hull were the words MSS
Cichlid
. Clever, Rick thought. African cichlids were some of the most intelligent fish in the world. A perfect name for an underwater science facility.

Feeling the exterior of the massive vessel with his hands, Doctor Grant found his bearings and led them to an access hatch. He punched a few numbers into a keypad on the hatch, and the door irised open.

Startled, Rick felt a strange pulling sensation.

He tried to swim away, but water spiraled into the open hatch like it was rushing down the drain of a sink. Doctor Grant flew in immediately, and then Evie was swallowed.

Rick fought against the current until his arms gave out. He banged his elbow against the hatch as he fell inside, sending sparks of pain through his arm.

Wherever he was, it was cold and flooded. He couldn't see an inch in front of his face. He groped wildly for something to grab onto, realizing that in this dark place blind Doctor Grant wasn't really at a disadvantage.

His hands settled on the sleek fabric of Evie's wetsuit. It didn't matter if she teased him for hugging her—he was scared.

He heard a loud gurgling sound, like the pipes of an old house. The water was draining out of this chamber, which must have been some kind of airlock—a way for people to enter and exit the research sub without flooding the whole vessel.

Rick sniffed and almost gagged. Even with their masks on, Evie's breath
stank
of fish. He knew she shouldn't have eaten that leftover char.

When the water had all gurgled away, red emergency lights came on. Evie and Doctor Grant were standing together at the far end of the small chamber, pulling off their masks and mouthpieces, gulping the stale air.

Wait. Evie? Then who was Rick—

It wasn't clear who was more surprised, Rick or the gray seal he was hugging. They both howled in alarm and pulled away.

Evie cackled madly. “Rick! I didn't know you had a
girl
friend.”

“
Raaaawf!
” said the seal, not amused.

“That seal must have gotten pulled into the airlock with us when we entered the sub. No worries. We will let him out when we're finished here.” Doctor Grant unzipped his satchel and pulled out a glass container the size of a lunchbox, a respirator attached to the side. He popped it open with a hiss.

An agitated Niels Bohr was curled up inside. The tiger cat leaped out of the box, looking as unhappy to be there as the seal.

“I'm sorry, Niels Bohr. They didn't have any scuba gear in your size.”

“
Mrowl! Rowl!
” Niels Bohr mewed, annoyed.

Rick took stock of their surroundings. They were in a small room with three doors leading off in different directions. To him the doors all looked the same. “So which way do we go?” he asked.

“This way,” Doctor Grant said, opening one of the doors, which revealed a long, rusty hallway beyond.

The seal barked as they left. He did not seem to appreciate being left alone.